Report: 1 in 4 Michigan hospital beds are in Catholic hospitals

A new report suggests it’s getting harder to get reproductive health care at Michigan hospitals.

A series of hospital mergers in recent years means more hospitals in Michigan are part of a Catholic health system.

A new report from the American Civil Liberties Union finds one in four hospital beds in Michigan is in a Catholic hospital. Nationally, it’s about one in six. In some parts of Michigan and the U.S., Catholic hospitals are the only local health-care facility.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops advises hospitals not to perform abortions and sterilizations. The bishops also discourage Catholic hospitals from promoting contraception.

That worries Brooke Tucker, an attorney with the ACLU of Michigan.

Tucker says Catholic hospitals don’t provide access to the kind of reproductive health services readily available at non-religious hospitals – even though they are open to the public, take taxpayer funds and do not tell the women that that is what they are doing,” says Tucker.

A federal judge recently tossed out a lawsuit to force Catholic hospitals in Michigan to provide reproductive health services at non-religious hospitals.

The ACLU is pressuring a Catholic hospital in Genesee County to change its policy on tubal ligations.

Jessica Mann is scheduled to undergo a Ceasarean section next month. It will be her third child, and she hopes her last.

Mann has a medical condition that would make having another pregnancy potentially fatal. But Genesys Regional Medical Center is refusing to give her doctor permission to perform a tubal ligation after Mann’s C-section.

This is becoming more important because more secular hospitals are merging with Catholic-affiliated health care providers. By our count, of the 187 hospitals in Michigan, 26 of them are Catholic. That's 14%.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan have filed a federal lawsuit against a national Catholic health system for failure to provide women suffering pregnancy complications, including miscarriages, with appropriate emergency abortions.

The ACLU claims that the Trinity Health Corporation, which is headquartered in Michigan, violates federal law by requiring its doctors to follow the Ethical and Religious Directives of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops – instead of accepted medical practice.